Is “b----cking” a swear word any more? The BBC clearly doesn’t think so, as another Radio 4 contributor used it last week on the Today programme, and without apology from any of the programme’s presenters.

During an 8.30am discussion about Wayne Rooney’s suitability for the England captaincy, Hunter Davies, who ghostwrote the Manchester United player’s autobiography, recalled how Rooney had received “a total b----cking” from former manager David Moyes.

Davies’s use of the word was passed over without the customary apology from the presenter when a guest swears live on air.

This was not the only example of swearing this summer holiday season, when a greater number of younger ears will have been exposed to their parents’ choice of radio station.

Last month, a panellist on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue said “a---”, while a News Quiz contestant used the phrase “p----d off” – in teatime slots on Radio 4. On neither occasion was the vulgarity bleeped out, nor warnings given before either programme was aired.

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According to BBC guidelines: “Radio does not have a watershed. Our scheduling decisions should be based on the audience expectations of each radio service and informed by our knowledge of when children are particularly likely to be in our audience.

“We must take extra care […] during the morning and afternoon school runs or during school holidays. Unexpected or challenging material should be clearly signposted to avoid causing unjustifiable offence.”

With the Corporation unwilling to impose the same “no swearing” rules on radio that govern television programmes broadcast before 9pm, Mary Killen, who writes The Spectator’s Dear Mary column about dealing with social dilemmas, says the only solution is to reach for the off switch.

“Personally, I don’t think the word “b----cking” is that bad,” says Killen, “but the incontinent behaviour of commentators is making it a risky business for families to tune in to the news.”

Now Emma Thompson’s sister is really cooking...

Sophie Thompson as Miss Adelaide with The Hot Box girls

The Chichester Festival’s production of Guys and Dolls is proving a hot ticket, with choreography by Carlos Acosta, five-star reviews, standing ovations from the audience, and the near-certainty that it will transfer to the West End.

The biggest cheers most nights have been for Sophie Thompson (right), who plays Miss Adelaide, the 14-year fiancée of Nathan.

Sophie’s having quite a year – she also won Celebrity Masterchef last month.

Good for Soph, we say – it can’t be easy living in the shadow of a big sister like Emma, with her two Oscars, numerous Baftas and national treasure status. It’s something that her mother, Phyllida Law, also an actress, used to fret about. “Of course, that used to worry me and obviously we’ve talked about it, but I’ve never had a very interesting career myself so I suppose Sophie relates to me,” she told The Sunday Telegraph earlier this year. “It’s also true that she may have had a happier life than Emma because of it.”

Jenni Murray on... why she is getting a gastric band

"At 64, I’m far too old to pass myself off as chubby or plump. Even fat doesn’t cover it these days"

Dylan’s Under Milk Wood 'voices’ heard again

Richard Burton in the late Forties

It is 60 years since Under Milk Wood was turned into a landmark radio drama – but is anyone from its cast around to mark the occasion?

Author Dylan Thomas died two months before it aired on the Third Programme in January 1954. Richard Burton, its narrator (pictured), died in 1984. Producer Douglas Cleverdon, who spent seven years wringing the script page by page from Thomas, died in 1987.

Only two leading names from the original production survive: Gwenyth Petty, who played Lily Smalls, the maid who longs for an exciting life away from Llaregub, and Alec Nesbitt, who did the sound effects and went on to become a successful television producer.

“It was one of my first jobs after joining the BBC,” says Nesbitt. “I had to walk in trays of gravel, knock on doors, rustle papers, that sort of thing.”

Nesbitt is long retired, but has been asked to reprise his sound effects role for a special reading of the “play for voices” this Friday, at the Coningsby Gallery in Fitzrovia, to mark the opening of a major exhibition of paintings inspired by Thomas’s work by Welsh artist Dan Llywelyn Hall.

Nesbitt hopes to be reunited with Petty, who lives in rural Wales – but she will only attend if she can find someone to look after her newest arrival: a puppy.

“So far, she is providing a video to play to the audience,” says Hall. “But I’m hoping she can join us.”

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"My kids have never drunk Coke, ever – and, by the way, I love Coke"

Chef Jamie Oliver on how to be a strict parent

Lily Allen’s dash from Kate Bush bash

Among the many celebrities in attendance for the first night of Kate Bush’s residency at London’s Hammersmith Apollo – Madonna and David Bowie were both rumoured to be in the audience – perhaps the least enamoured was Lily Allen.

Not only did the singer upload a photograph she had taken during the performance, in contravention of Bush’s request that fans put away their phones, Allen also left the gig unfashionably early.

Barely two hours into the three-hour concert, the 29-year-old snuck out – only to be caught making her dash by waiting news cameras.

Not normally stuck for words, Allen refused to stop and give her verdict on Bush’s first gig in 35 years.

Sam Cam's cool look

Dressed down in a grey jersey and giant sunnies, Samantha Cameron showed her support for The Big Feastival, Oxfordshire’s food and music event. The three-day festival, held on Alex James’s Cotswold farm at Kingham, Oxfordshire, concludes tonight with a performance by Jamie Cullum.

Number of the week: 50 per cent

Royalties paid to Beyoncé by British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage for a work written for a recent Prom.

The 54-year-old composer’s popular percussive piece, Hammered Out, was deemed too closely inspired by the American singer’s 2009 hit, Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) – meaning that he now has to hand over half of the royalties due on it.

The 15-minute orchestral work, which was given a world premiere by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms in 2010, was a “gift to my son”, who had been fond of the Beyoncé song.

“I should have come clean about it from the start,” says Turnage. “I’d handled it really badly.”